1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of media processing and, more particularly, to system and methodology for efficient registration and provisioning of new user accounts, especially those which relate to creation and management of media content (e.g., digital images, sound, video, or the like) from wireless client devices (e.g., digital cameras with wireless capacity or connectivity to cellular phone devices).
2. Description of the Background Art
Today, digital imaging, particularly in the form of digital cameras, is a prevalent reality that affords a new way to capture photos using a solid-state image sensor instead of traditional film. A digital camera functions by recording incoming light on some sort of sensing mechanisms and then processes that information (basically, through analog-to-digital conversion) to create a memory image of the target picture. A digital camera's biggest advantage is that it creates images digitally thus making it easy to transfer images between all kinds of devices and applications. For instance, one can easily insert digital images into word processing documents, send them by e-mail to friends, or post them on a Web site where anyone in the world can see them. Additionally, one can use photo-editing software to manipulate digital images to improve or alter them. For example, one can crop them, remove red eye, change colors or contrast, and even add and delete elements. Digital cameras also provide immediate access to one's images, thus avoiding the hassle and delay of film processing. All told, digital photography is becoming increasingly popular because of the flexibility it gives the user when he or she wants to use or distribute an image.
In order to generate an image of quality that is roughly comparable to a conventional photograph, a substantial amount of information must be captured and processed. For example, a low-resolution 640×480 image has 307,200 pixels. If each pixel uses 24 bits (3 bytes) for true color, a single image takes up about a megabyte of storage space. As the resolution increases, so does the image's file size. At a resolution of 1024×768, each 24-bit picture takes up 2.5 megabytes. Because of the large size of this information, digital cameras usually do not store a picture in its raw digital format but, instead, apply compression technique to the image so that it can be stored in a standard-compressed image format, such as JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group). Compressing images allows the user to save more images on the camera's “digital film,” such as flash memory (available in a variety of specific formats) or other facsimile of film. It also allows the user to download and display those images more quickly.
A variety of digital imaging devices are currently available to consumers. Regardless of how images are recorded digitally, at some later point in time, the image information must become available to other (display) devices—that is, become available to a larger network of digital devices, so that the images may be outputted (e.g., printed to hard copy) or shared with other people. Today, Web sites exist on the Internet with server computers having the capability to organize and display photographs. In a complementary manner, a multitude of different client devices exist with sufficient graphics capabilities for potentially viewing those photographs. For instance, such client devices range from desktop computers running Web browser software to handheld devices (e.g., running under Palm or Windows CE), all connected to the Internet over TCP/IP, each with the capability of displaying information.
Some digital cameras implement a wireless transmission capability for sending images they capture to photo-hosting Web sites on the Internet. In such an environment, the media-capturing device is typically attached (intermittently) to a cellular phone device, which in turn communicates through a wireless network to a gateway that enables further communication over the Internet.
Cellular-enabled digital camera devices, through the corresponding supporting server infrastructure that they wirelessly communicate with, provide “direct access” to photo Web sites at which users can view and share their digital photographs. On-line digital photographs are distributed to the photo Web site via many optional channels, one of which is the wireless client transmission of the image from wireless imaging devices, such as a cell-phone-coupled digital camera device. Ultimately, Web-accessible user accounts are the final destination/repository of digital images that were generated by these devices. These accounts are the users' access point to view and manipulate the transmitted images.
However, for existing implementations of photo-sharing Web sites, a new user must first create a Web account at a photo Web site prior to being able to use the coupled client devices to take pictures and upload them to the photo Web site. This activation of a new user account is cumbersome and sometimes obstructive for the new user, who, having obtained a cellular-enabled digital camera, would expect automated features in such a digital system, and would want to simply take snapshots and post them on a Web site with the camera, right “out-of-the-box.” Of course, it is highly desirable to allow such client devices to be used directly out-of-the-box by new users without having to perform any prior-to-use manual account creation, such as account creation on a Web-resident server using a browser and/or other program. In addition to these reasonable needs and expectations of users, the manufacturers and vendors of such client devices, as well as photo Web site businesses, desire to implement services that provide reasonably simple mechanisms to allow for the development of efficient and effective customer support systems. To the point, today's system of not allowing a new user to use his or her newly-acquired device at the outset is inefficient. For instance, this prevents a new user from using his or her newly-acquired wireless digital camera to begin posting pictures (from the new camera) on the Web until after the user has first established a photo Web site user account.
Prior art attempts to address this account creation problem have been limited to manual techniques that are employed at the point of sale for such devices, whether they be cellular phone client devices or digital camera client devices. Albeit the new user accounts can be created at the point of sale, which transpires before the user can take pictures, such approaches still require the up-front human intervention (bookkeeping) for creating a new user account on the Web at the photo Web site and are, thus, suboptimal. Both the user and sometimes a sales support person fill out forms or otherwise notify the appropriate photo Web site that this user is associated with the serial number, or some unique valid ID, of either this cellular phone or this digital camera. Then the Web site provides the user with a unique user name and password for later accessing the new Web account being created at the point of sale. Other approaches have provided users, at the point of sale, account-enabling information to forward to a photo Web site either via a telephone number or via software running at the Web site. These systems do transact the account registration/activation “early,” in that this bookkeeping precedes the user taking pictures with the new client(s) devices, but the user (and sometimes a sales support person) still partakes in the above-mentioned manual bookkeeping requirements prior to using the cellular-enabled camera for taking pictures and posting them on the Web.
Because of the ever-increasing popularity of these devices, much interest exists in finding a solution to these problems so that new users may begin enjoying the full capabilities and services of these devices at the outset, that is, directly “out-of-the-box”.